Friday, August 7, 2009

Shit is getting so crucial for honey bees. Scientists are unsure why honey bee colonies in the U.S are dying off so quickly. With bees dying at unprecedented rates, U.S agriculture is at the mercy of the phenomenon. To put some perspective on it, according to Target Health Inc. all of the following are dependent on bees, apples, pears, tangerines, peaches, soybeans, pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, cherries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, carrots, broccoli and avocados. And bees also pollinate almonds? California has the biggest almond groves in the world, supplying 80 percent of the nuts on the market; they currently have to import millions of bees to pollinate the groves. It's even more crucial than we think:

Albert Einstein made the statement "If honey bees become extinct, human society will follow in four years.” He was speaking in regard to the symbiotic relationship of all life on the planet. All part of a huge interconnected ecosystem, each element playing a role dependant on many other elements all working in concert creating the symphony of life. Should any part of the global body suffer, so does the whole body.

Many people would be surprised to know that 90% of the feral (wild) bee population in the United States has died out. Recent studies in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have shown that bee diversity is down 80 percent in the sites researched, and that “bee species are declining or have become extinct in Britain.” The studies also revealed that the numbers of wildflowers that depend on pollination have dropped by 70 percent. Which came first, the decline in wildflowers or the decline in pollinators, has yet to be determined. If bees continue to die off so would the crops they support and with that would ensue major economic disruption and possibly famine.

At stake is the work the honeybees do, pollinating more than USD 15 billion worth of US crops, including Pennsylvania’s apple harvest, the fourth-largest in the nation, worth USD 45 million, and New Jersey’s cranberries and blueberries.

While a few crops, such as corn and wheat, are pollinated by the wind, bees help pollinate more than 90 commercially grown field crops, citrus and other fruit crops, vegetables and nut crops. Without these insects, crop yields would fall dramatically and some tangerines and pecans would cease to exist. Agronomists estimate Americans owe one in three bites of food to bees.”